


One good thing

by von_gikkingen



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Hydra (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:48:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27021523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/von_gikkingen/pseuds/von_gikkingen
Summary: The occasional attack of synaesthesia is nothing but a minor byproduct of the things her rewired brain is now capable of. The one good thing, she always calls it. Because she needs to believe it. Because it makes her feel that her life wasn't completely ruined - by a decision she made herself, out of misplaced loyalty to an organization that discarded her the moment it became clear what they created in her wasn't exactly what they were after.Sad story - but isn't that alwyas the case when Hydra gets involved?
Relationships: Brock Rumlow/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 12





	One good thing

“Hey,” comes a voice from the darkness even as he can feel a hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. “Wake up. I think it’s happening again.” 

“Not now...” he groans, swatting it away. 

“Yes. _Now_. Come on...” she says, the voice right in his ear now, warm breath against his skin. And it is not to be argued with, that voice. Whenever that urgency starts tainting her words there can only be one outcome. 

He reaches blindly in the direction of the nightstand to turn the light on so he can confirm that it is indeed happening again. That her eyes are doing that thing no human eye should be doing – her irises expanding in a chaotic, unnatural way, leaking into the white in a way that is reminiscent of solar flares bursting out of the surface of the sun. 

“Well...?” she says, as she sits up and leans closer to give him better look. “It is, isn’t it? Because I can taste the texture of the bedsheets.” 

A statement that would make her sound absolutely crazy to anyone who didn’t know that she can in fact do that. That after the experiment Hydra scientists performed on her she has access to some supremely abnormal sensory input. The occasional attack of synaesthesia is nothing but a minor byproduct of the things her rewired brain is now capable of. 

It is also the only good thing to come out of that unethical experiment that pretty much ruined her life.

The one good thing, she always calls it. Because she needs to believe it. Because it makes her feel like her life wasn't completely ruined - by a decision she made herself, out of misplaced loyalty to an organization that discarded her the moment it became clear what they created in her wasn't exactly what they were after. 

Sad story - but isn't that always the case when Hydra gets involved?

She lays her hand on top of his, where it’s cupping her face, smiling at whatever the contact with his fingers just made her feel. Rumlow doesn’t ask. This isn't the time to inquire into what exactly are the crossed wires in her brain making her feel. “Do we have to be fast...?” he asks instead, it being the only question that matters. 

“Think so. This is gonna be a short one,” she sighs, disappointed in advance. 

Understandably so. This thing that has been done to her – that she volunteered to have done to her – made her life worse on every turn. These occasional attacks were all she had to compensate for all the other side effects. And only if she took advantage of them in time. Which is why she never hesitated to wake him from sound sleep in the middle of the night, not giving a damn about how selfish such behaviour was. 

He couldn’t fault her for that, really. He wanted to, still not entirely liking the idea of being awake right now. “How well can you see?” he asks, well aware that her attacks were often accompanied by a complete loss of eyesight. 

“Oh, not this again. Seriously, Brock...? What about _this will be over in a few minutes_ don’t you understand? Yes, I can see you. Burns and all. Don’t care,” she says, punctuating the words by pulling the oversized shirt she’s wearing over her head. “Now do you want to fuck me or not?” 

“Yes,” he says because that last question is the easiest part of what she just said to deal with. “And that’s not what I was talking about.” 

“Yeah... because you definitely don’t enjoy it more when I go blind...” she says, rolling her eyes. Which is a really disturbing sight right now, the white almost all gone as the honey-brown of her iris expands ever outwards. 

“Oh, shut up,” he tells her. Both because, as she keeps making abundantly clear, they don’t have that much time – and because that is a conversation they really shouldn’t be having under these or any other circumstances.

Better to keep those things unspoken. 

Better not to waste any time. Because as strange as all this was at first he long since got used to it. Found himself preferring this. The way her responses could be far more intense than anything he did warrantied, the occasional whispered word that gave a hint about what it was she was experiencing inside her crosswired brain – this damn eagerness he knew he couldn’t hope to find anywhere else. Not with the scars he now bore. 

This was the best he could ever hope for. Someone whose damage – damage caused by the very same loyalty that left him a burned wreck – made her willing to overlook things about him no one else would be able to overlook. 

He could tell that she told him the truth. For all the tempestuous motion of her irises she could still see him. As close as they were right now she couldn’t miss a single scar. And rather than shrink back her response was to pull him closer, to run her tongue over his lower lip as her lids half-closed over those unnatural eyes. “That’s more like it,” she says only when his response is to push her down and pin her under him. An action that is none too gentle but then they rarely are. What they have is sex stripped to absolute basics. They’re not two people engaged in any kind of intimacy, they’re two bodies sharing something primal and uncomplicated. Something that’s not always entirely painless but that only makes it better. 

“Seriously?” he says as her teeth sink into his shoulder. 

“Oh...? Am I hurting you?” she says, an unapologetic grin curving her lips. “If you could taste this you’d bite me until I bled...” 

He opens his mouth to answer, then realizes there might not be a good answer to something like that. Or a bad one. And her teeth are nipping at his skin again a second later, prompting him to push her down again, covering her mouth with his hand. “You need to calm down.” 

She does nothing of the kind. She doesn’t bite his hand, though, and that’s something. Because for a moment something feral comes into her expression, making him worry that she might. That she might go after his fingers and bite down until her teeth stop against the bone... 

Banishing that less than pleasant thought he runs his free hand up her inner thigh, slipping his fingers inside her to find her, perhaps unsurprisingly, already wet. He uncovers her mouth and makes no comment when she immediately bites him again. It’s more restrained this time, stopping just short of being painful – it’s not about causing pain for her, after all. It’s about the feeling of skin under her teeth. About whatever her broken brain translates it into. A smell, a taste, a tactile sensation of a wholly different kind. 

“Do you wanna turn around...?” he asks her. 

“Do I want to indulge your insecurities, you mean? No. Really don’t,” she replies, squirming a little in a way that’s meant to communicate she’s perfectly comfortable as she is now, laying on her back. “How many times do we have to go through this? I don’t care.”

“Maybe I’m not a huge fan of looking at your freaky eyes.” 

She doesn’t call him a liar. Her expression does a pretty good job of letting him know she considers him one, though. Because for all that her eyesight isn’t great when these attacks are happening she’d have noticed if he couldn’t meet her eyes. And he has no more trouble doing that than she does touching his ruined skin. 

He still prefers her facing away and perhaps always will. For reasons that, true, might be all about his own insecurities. But since that’s not happening tonight – since she looks like she might fight him if he as much as tried to get her to shift into a different position – he decides to stop talking and start taking advantage of this. The way she’s holding her breath in anticipation, her expression impatient and sensual, all at once. 

“Oh... god...” she says after just a few thrusts, the words barely discernible. 

“Good or bad?” he asks because it’s impossible to tell. For all he knows something in her brain went wrong and she’s going through some flavour of agony or other. 

“Good. Really good. Don’t stop.” 

It doesn’t go away, that rapturous expression on her face. Whatever it is she’s feeling it goes far beyond the pleasure of their bodies colliding. There’s true ecstasy etched into her features, something he can’t possibly take much credit for. Whatever she’s experiencing it’s all in her mind and being only partially affected by what’s happening to her body. As ever reminding him she’s getting a lot more out of their arrangement than he ever will. 

And then it passes. Just like that. A switch flips inside her head and the ecstatic experience that was taking over all her senses is just a memory. When her eyes open there is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about them. Two perfectly normal brown irises look back at him. “Does this mean...?” 

“I swear, if you ask me if you can go back to sleep now,” she says, with something that’s bordering on real anger, “I will bite you.” 

“Already did. Hate to breakt this to you but I didn’t exactly hate it.” 

It’s his own fault, really, the next bite, coming before he’s even done talking. “No sleep. Not until we’re done here,” she tells him. Not that there’s much of a chance of that. As exhausted as he was when she shook him awake, his priorities has changed since then. They always did... 

This, what they had whether she was in throws of synaesthesia for minutes or hours, took precedent over everything very easily. And yes, part of it was the impossible to ignore fact that he would have hard time finding anyone else able to look at him like this. But they were past that now. There were too many nights like this and they were a little too aware of just how good they were together. 

It wasn’t a relationship built on much more than the ability to satisfy one another. There was very little besides sex between them – they knew the other well enough to be able to tell when to stay the hell out of their way but that was about it. None of the things that made people want to be together were there, not for them. And yet there seemed to be no signs things might end. Looking at her now he knew that she could never give this up, no more than he could. 

“Okay, _now_ you can go back to sleep,” she says. Needlessly. The way her nails dug into his back told him as reliably as ever that she just got what she needed from him. 

He doesn’t bother to answer. Not even to tell her to stop idly running her fingers through his hair while she’s waiting for him to finish. He doesn’t hate the touch any more than he hates the occasional bite. It’s one of the things that never needed to be spoken out loud to be understood. And in this they have complete understanding. Know all there is to know about all the lines that can’t be crossed, every little trick that will always work. 

“You always wake me up for these, right?” he finds himself asking moments later, after shifting his weight to give her a chance to slip from under him and move to her side of the bed. 

“Of course. Don’t you always wake me up when you get back from some shootout you barely survived? High on adrenaline and horny as hell...” she grins.

“I do,” he admits. 

“Good,” she says, her eyes already closed, making him think they’re done talking now. But she’s not asleep just yet, because after taking a few slow breaths he hears her add, “Always do. _Always_.” 

And he always will, he knows. Until there’s a shootout he won’t walk away from alive he always will... 


End file.
